Archive for June, 2009

Vinyl

Jellyfish – Spilt Milk (1993)

The rock landscape is littered with immensely talented bands who, for some reason or another, never got off the ground. And I’ll bet virtually no one has heard of about 98% of them. The remaining 2% are those whose talent wasn’t recognized until it was too late, or the bandRead More

Vinyl

Michael Jackson (1958-2009): An Appreciation

Only Michael Jackson could have done so much so quickly to obscure the ass-shaking, barrier-breaking brilliance of his own music. He was that famous. It’s always pissed me off, and never more so than today — when Jackson finally succumbed to the swirling demons of his own life. I thinkRead More

Vinyl

Johnnie Bassett – The Gentleman Is Back (2009)

Refined, yet deliciously groovy, 72-year-old Johnnie Bassett’s music — and his bearing — belies his family’s rascally bootlegger roots. It’s perhaps no surprise, though, that many of the more well-known Florida-area bluesmen of the Prohibition era — Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red — would stop by toRead More

Vinyl

East West Quintet – Vast (2009)

by Pico East West Quintet, based out of the decidedly eastern locality of Brooklyn, NY, is coming out with only their second full-length album today, Vast. Starting out in 2003 as an outfit celebrating the soulful hard bop popularized by Cannonball Adderley and his famous quintet, East West quickly absorbedRead More

Vinyl

Quickies: Wilco, Tortoise, Cyril Neville

December 17, 2008. That’s the last time a non-jazz record has appeared on a Quickies column. In the intervening half-year there’s been so many fresh non-jazz records that merits at least a few paragraphs, and sometimes the full fledged reviews can’t adequately cover ’em all. So guess what…it’s a QuickiesRead More

Vinyl

The Low Anthem – Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (2009) September 2, 2008

by Pico The last time I covered a band out of Providence RI, I was thunderstruck by the wonderfully weird folks who make up the musical buffet table Barnacled. On the other end of the spectrum but in the same seaside New England town hails an folk-rock outfit called TheRead More

Vinyl

Sharel Cassity – Just For You (2008)

by Pico There has long been this deep divide in jazz. One one side are the traditionalists, who believe in the purity of jazz as an art form that shouldn’t be diluted by combining it with other forms of music, nor should stray far from the tenets of jazz establishedRead More

Vinyl

George Harrison – Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison (2009)

by Nick DeRiso More musical journey than greatest hits, per se, “Let It Roll” is a primer on George Harrison for those who never got past his time with Beatles — and yet a still-intriguing way to reexperience some of his best solo cuts for those who followed along afterRead More

Vinyl

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Demos (2009)

Crosby, Stills & Nash hadn’t produced a new studio record in fifteen years (or ten, if you add Neil Young), but there hadn’t been a more active period of release activity of new/previously unheard material by these three than there have in the last few years. David Crosby and GrahamRead More

Vinyl

Rick Germanson Trio – Off The Cuff (2009)

The term “Milwaukee’s Best” probably doesn’t have the positive connotation that it should, thanks to that being the name of Miller Beer’s economy brand. But when it comes to musicians, there’s plenty from this fine Wisconsin city to be proud of, from Woody Herman and Al Jarreau to Daryl StuermerRead More